Our good friend Luke Sacks attended one of Neil Young’s New York concerts last Thursday, and he graciously filed the following front-line report…

Neil Young brought both halves of his genius to the United Palace Theater in New York City on Thursday night with the second of six acoustic/electric shows.

The first 11 songs of the show were just Young, surrounded by a ring of acoustic guitars and flanked by pianos on each side of the stage. He wandered between the three instruments and poured his heart into classics like Harvest and After the Gold Rush, as well as the buried treasure Ambulance Blues.

Photo by GRW95

Playing in front of a rustic-themed set-up with random letters, numbers and lights, Young wailed on his harmonica and filled the venue with his lone acoustic guitar.

Read on for more of Luke’s review, a live video of Cinnamon Girl from the run and some downloadable NYC torrents…

Young took a brief break and his crew dismantled the guitar ring to make room for the band. The electric set opened with Mr. Soul – a nice surprise for everyone expecting one of the standard openers from this tour. Each electric song had an accompanying painting that was placed on an easel at stage left. The best part of the art show was watching the dapper-dressed roadie charged with timing the painting’s unveiling with the start of the song.

Photo by Furnstein

In the plugged-in portion of the night, Young rocking back in forth and abusing his guitar, continued to deliver. He launched into his trademarked fractured-chord jams with ferocity backed by a very casually aligned band.

After the show’s final three songs – No Hidden Path to close the set and Cinnamon Girl and Cortez the Killer – Young’s guitar was left a mess of dangling wires and squeals. A true sign the man can still bring the heat.

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Live Cinnamon Girl from 12/15/07